Affliction Cyst: the aggressive flying-deployment formation (AoS 4th Ed)
Pushes flying units up the board after deployment, giving a slow army early reach and objective pressure.
SprueSentry strategy commentary for Age of Sigmar 4th edition, not official rules. Games Workshop updates points and rules regularly — always confirm against the current official rules and your latest dataslate before a game.
Affliction Cyst is the mobility formation. It lets flying units deploy well up the board (community summaries cite around 9") after normal deployment, giving the usually-slow Maggotkin early threat range on objectives and characters. Exact distances and conditions are seasonal, so confirm on your current faction pack.
What the formation does
It grants advanced deployment for flying units, letting them start closer to the enemy or key objectives. That partly solves the army's biggest weakness, its slow speed, by putting fast, disease-carrying threats where they matter from turn one.
Who it suits
Players building around Pusgoyle Blightlords, Plague Drones, and other fliers who want to apply pressure early rather than grind purely from their own half of the board.
Key units
- Pusgoyle Blightlords as durable, hard-hitting flying disease-carriers
- Plague Drones for fast objective-grabbing and infection
- A Greater Daemon to support and recycle daemon fliers
- Cheap daemon infantry to hold your home objectives while fliers push
When to pick it
Pick it against slow or static opponents you want to pressure early, or on missions where grabbing distant objectives quickly is decisive. It's the answer when Maggotkin's lack of speed would otherwise cost you tempo.
Common questions
Does Affliction Cyst fix Maggotkin's slowness?
It helps a lot for your fliers by letting them start far up the board, but the rest of the army is still slow. Use it to project early threats while your durable core advances behind them.
Which units benefit most?
Flying units such as Pusgoyle Blightlords and Plague Drones. Verify the exact fly requirement and advanced-deployment distance in your current faction pack, as these numbers can change with updates.
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- Faction Pack Overview: Maggotkin of Nurgle - Tabletop Battles · 2024
Written by SprueSentry with SprueSentry editorial (hand-authored, research-grounded), grounded in the cited sources — original commentary, not Games Workshop rules text.